All Shall Desire a NID
by MissNemisisFace
Summary: "A disapproving mother can have one of two effects: The desire to please and to carve hatred onto the heart of the child." What if Brett and Chet weren't the only twins? What if Once-ler had a twin, too? OC in this. It skips around a bit, much to my chagrin, but it's not so bad. It gets a little weird, though. Rated for swears, to be safe. Changed up a bit! Added something.


All Shall Desire a NID

In a room shared by her three brothers—two older and one her twin, a girl with black hair and blue eyes awakes. She slept upon a bedroll, but by her own choice. A bed, she thought would take up too much space—space she needed for her computers and other machinery. Her brothers were already downstairs—her twin, Once-ler, always waking first to make breakfast.

"I don't know why he bothers to attempt to please those philistines. They are beneath us. Once-ler and I, we are the visionaries in this family…" she grumbles to herself as she pulls on her worn denim jeans and faded grey top. Quickly, and just enough to remove a few tangles, she runs a brush through her hair and pulls it back into a low pony-tail.

"I was wondering when you'd drag your ass down here, Once-lette." Grizelda, their plump aunt nearly growls at her in between mouthfuls of the breakfast Once-ler had lovingly prepared. Once-ler sat alone, eating the small portion he had saved for himself and leaving the portion for Once-lette untouched. She sits next to him.

"I saved you some eggs and toast, Once-lette. I tried to keep it warm, but you sleep so late." He says to her. Nodding she begins eating. Once-ler stops for a moment. "Once-lette, will you at least come outside with me today? You've been holed up in our room working on those computers for so long. It would do you well to get a little sun-shine. You're starting to look so pale, and the lack of sleep is really starting to show."

"Will Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumbass be there, too?"

"They don't have to be, though I wish you wouldn't call Brett and Chet that." Once-ler's voice was so delicate, so quiet. He was used to keeping quiet as their mother seemed to disapprove of everything he did—just as she disapproved of everything Once-lette did. The girl slowly eats the scrambled eggs and toast her twin had prepared and eyes the rest of the family, a look of contempt and hatred on her face. Just as they finished their meal, the rest of the family gets up and leaves, without so much as a "thank you" to Once-ler for his work and consideration. Once-lette pats him on the back.

"I don't know about going outside—too busy today. However, I do have something I'd like for you to take a look at. I know that Ubb, Grizelda, and Mom won't care, and Brett and Chet won't even understand, but you, Once-ler. You're smart. You'll get it. You'll appreciate it." The two of them work together to clean the dishes and put them away and head upstairs.

The girl sits on the floor before her computers, all humming softly as three out of the four monitors glow softly, Windows 95 running on all four computers. A fifth monitor lies on the floor, completely unhooked, though Once-lette recently acquired it while a sixth sat, opened and with a number of its components missing. Once-ler sits next to her on the hardwood floor of their shared bedroom, her bedroll in between Once-ler's bed and her computers. A strange pair of goggles sits on top of one of the monitors.

"What did you want me to see, Once-lette?" Once-ler asks. The girl smiles—a rare sight, and grabs the goggles.

"These. I call it the _Aux-Moni-Visor_, or AMV for short. Put it on, take a look." Once-ler does as his sister asks and is amazed by what he sees. Everything that would display on a monitor is seen in these goggles.

"Once-lette, this is amazing! I have a question, though. How do I scroll?"

"Look down, then, slowly, look back up." She says. Once-ler does so, and the screen scrolls, allowing him to look at more of what Once-lette had pulled up on her main window. "I put a motion sensor in the left side of the goggles. It works on a reverse-axis." She says, excitedly. "The only problem is, there's still a need for the keyboard…but, I plan to remedy that, soon."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I don't know, _yet_." She says.

"How do I get the mouse to work? Isn't there going to have to be a mouse, too?"

"No. Look at one of the other windows—any of them. Focus. Then, wink. Wink your left eye for left-click and your right eye for right-click."

"Okay." He looks to the game of "_Minesweeper_" she had open in another window and winks his left eye. The window's frame darkens, signaling that it is now the main window. "Cool! Could I play the game like this, too?"

"Yep." She says, pride in her voice.

"What if I blink?"

"I programmed an over-ride for that. It ignores blinking. Took me months to do." She says, still prideful.

"God, you're still working on that piece of garbage, Once-lette?" Once-ler and Once-lette turn quickly, Once-ler pulling the goggles up onto his forehead, to see their mother standing at their bedroom door. "What's the matter with you, Once-lette? It is unnatural for a little girl to be so obsessed with machines. All you do is sit up here and tinker on those stupid computers, day in, day out. Can't you be a normal girl?"

"I…I don't think Once-lette's invention is stupid, Mom…" Once-ler says, sheepishly.

"Oncie, be quiet. What do you know? The two of you are never going to be anything, I swear. Between his stupid drawings and you and your machines, the two of you are one big disappointment." She walks out of her room. "What am I going to do with the two of you?" she asks no one as she descends the stairs. Once-ler looks over at his twin sister. The girl sat with her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, rage and hatred seething in her blue eyes. Once-ler takes the goggles off and places them back where they belong. Standing, he extends his hand to his twin.

"Wanna go outside? I think it'd do you good to go on a walk around the farm with me." She glares up at him, tears just barely visible in the corners of her eyes. "I was telling the truth. I think the AMV is cool. A monitor you wear on your face. It wasn't very heavy, either." The girl lets out all her breath in a huff and takes her brother's hand.

"Fine. I'll go on the stupid walk with you, Once-ler." She, with his help, stands up.

'_She's awfully weak in the legs. I bet it's from all that time sitting in the floor in front of those computers. She needs to walk more._' Once-ler thinks.

The sun shines bright as the two unloved twins walk about the farmstead. The air is clean, and birds chirp in the sky. A small family of cats live in the rusted truck near the house and the kittens were out running in the tall grass.

"They're all idiots. Every one of them, Once-ler. I don't see why you try so hard for them to like you. They are beneath you. Beneath us both."

"Don't say that, Once-lette."

"They are insects, Once-ler. Imperfect, especially Mom—yet she sees fault in everyone, except the doofus twins—and herself, of course."

"Why do you hate Brett and Chet so much, Once-lette?"

"They are the worst of them. Idiots. Completely ignorant with no inclination to better themselves—no inclination to learn something new. They are truly stupid. Can't you see that we are the only family members in the family that _aren't_ failures or potential failures? Yet they treat us like _we're_ the failures. It makes me sick. I hate them all so much."

"Brett and Chet aren't so bad, Once-lette. You just have to excuse them. They can't help that they're…well…I hate to agree with you, but _stupid_. Give them a chance. Let them see what you're up to. They might surprise you."

"And how did that work out for you when you showed them your ideas, Once-ler? They broke a lot of them and called them all stupid." She shakes her head. "They're morons. Not just morons, but rednecks. Can't appreciate the work of a true visionary when they see it."

'_Does she mean me or herself?_' Once-ler thinks.

"I have no idea from where we inherit our intelligence, Once-ler. Where we inherit our vision, our drive, our ambition. We sure don't get it from Mom. I've seen her do nothing but waste money on fancy dresses and that disgusting fox stole she wears and insult the two of us. What is she? Nothing. That's what. She is nothing."

"She is our mother!" Once-ler says, taken aback at his sister's open disdain and disrespect for their mother.

"Ubb and Grizelda, too. What do they do? Ubb fought in some war ages ago, and Grizelda does nothing but sit around, becoming more and more of the gastropod that she already is."

"Gastropod?"

"Walking stomach."

"Oh." Once-ler stops. "Once-lette, I don't think you should hate our family as much as you do. Sure, they're not the best people, but I'm sure they try." Once-lette glares at him again.

"There you go again, making excuses for those ignoramuses." She kicks at the dirt and looks up at the sky. "God, why do you care about them so much? They surely don't seem to care about us—"

"Once-lette, you know that isn't true! They care, they just…have a funny way of showing it." She blows and looks over at him.

"Whatever you say, Once-ler. Whatever you say." She says. "Let's go back home. I have something that needs attending."

Later that night, Once-lette sits on the floor, one of her computers off and opened. She works with two hard drives, connecting them to the PC. She was missing dinner, but she knew Once-ler would bring her a plate up—if there was anything left.

'_Come on. I've done all the work to prepare you for this. Please, accept the tertiary and quaternary hard-drives as new slave drives…I can work on removing the partition later. I have an idea, but you have to be stronger for it…come on…come on…_' She thinks. Brett and Chet storm into the room, hooting and hollering.

"You sure did miss a good supper, gear-head!" Brett chuckles.

"Yeah, _gear-head_! There's nothing left!" Chet parrots his twin. "Once-ler's not going to bring you up a plate~!" he says, his voice sing-song.

"Yeah, we made sure of that!" Brett says, belching. "It's what you get for missing supper to do…what is it you're even doing?"

"You wouldn't understand and it would take me far too long to explain it to you. I'd have to go get the puppets." Brett and Chet scowl and walk closer to Once-lette's project.

"Looks like she's trying to hook up to more of those doo-hickeys to that one computer—the one she always uses the most."

"Slave drives."

"_Slave_ drives?" Chet asks. Once-lette sighs.

"Yes, in a computer there is a main hard-drive, the "Master" drive and usually a second "slave" drive. The Master drive is usually more powerful and can hold more information while the slave or slaves serve as back-up."

"So, what are you trying to do?" Chet asks, genuinely curious while his twin scoffs.

"Really? You want to know?" Once-lette asks, suspicion in her voice.

"Yeah. Tell me."

"I need to make this computer more powerful. It needs to be for an idea I have. It can't handle the program as it is—it needs two more, I'd wager." Chet pokes at something inside of the computer.

"What's this?"

"A video card."

"What about this?"

"Sound card."

"And this?"

"That," she says, "Is the modem. It allows me to connect to the Internet."

"What's the Internet?"

"It's what's going to revolutionize everything. Just wait, in a few years, everything and everyone will be online, all connected together as one. With the internet, you can talk to people from all over the world, learn anything you need to know. It is an amazing tool. Genius, really." She looks up at him, shaken out of her heady mood at the prospects that the internet holds. "Also, don't touch the internal parts of my computer, please. They are sensitive."

"Oh! Are they?" Brett says, half-chuckling.

"Brett, don't." Chet says, worry in his voice. Brett smirks and kicks Once-lette's main computer, just as she finishes hooking up the fourth drive. The computer flies across the room, propelled by her brother's strength and his hard, leather boot. It smacks against the wall, its internal parts flying in all directions, the motherboard shattering, the processing chip flying into the near window, the sound and video cards flying in opposite directions and the modem crashing to the floor, still partially connected to the motherboard. The hard drives, partially detached, hang pathetically. Once-lette sits there for a moment, her eyes wide, and then something in her snaps. She stands and faces her older brother.

"Fuck you, Brett! You asshole! Do you have any _idea_ how long it took me to assemble that computer!? I made it from scratch! All my work, gone, broken! You bastard! You son of a bitch! I'm going to kill you!" she dives at him, all her hatred and anger unleashed in a flurry of blows, most of which, Brett side-steps until finally, her right fist makes contact with his abdomen. He doubles over, and she strikes him again and again until Chet pulls her off him. "You bastard! Bastard! My work…my work…" she breaks into sobs. Lying on the floor, and in a considerable amount of pain, Brett looks up at her.

"Is the little girl going to cry now?" he laughs, labored.

"Brett…" Chet says. The three of them look to see Once-ler, Ubb, Grizelda, and their mother standing at the door.

"What happened in here?" Grizelda grunts, not even a modicum of concern in her husky, mannish voice. Ubb stands silent and a smirk crosses their mother's face.

"Once-lette! Your computer!" Once-ler cries out and runs to his sobbing, but still extremely angry sister.

"I don't see why you're so upset, Oncie. You know Once-lette has three more computers. She can use those." She turns to look directly at her infuriated daughter. "And if she's _so smart_, she can just rebuild that one." Barely stifling a chuckle, she says: "Let's leave Once-lette the _smarty-pants_ to fix her computer. Brett, get up. Beaten up by a girl—by your little sister, no less. What kind of boy are you?"

"I-I'm sorry, mama…" Brett says as he raises, unsteadily, to his feet and follows the rest of the family downstairs. Once-ler stands at the door for a moment.

"Once-lette…if you need any help—"

"Get out. Just go like the rest of them, Once-ler."

"Once-lette…" he says, worry and concern in his voice mixed with a tiny bit of hurt.

"Go!" she shouts, angry tears on her face as she tries to gather the broken parts of her best PC.

The next morning, Once-ler awakes to find Once-lette missing, the broken parts of her computer piled in the casing. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and leaves the room silently, looking for her. As he leaves the room, he notices a series of ones and zeroes carved into Brett's bedframe.

'_She was so upset last night…I hope she didn't….I hope she didn't do anything _drastic_…_' He checks the upstairs rooms, the bathroom empty, his mother's room still shut as with his uncle and aunt's room—Grizelda's snoring audible through the door. Quietly, he goes downstairs to find her. The kitchen is empty, the downstairs bathroom, the dining room, the parlor, the living room, Ubb's study; all empty. Out of the window of his uncle's study, he catches Once-lette doing something he had never seen her do before. He goes outside.

"What are you doing with that old car, Once-lette?" Once-ler asks. She has the hood up and he can hear her working inside.

"It's a rust-heap, but it's salvageable. I'm fixing it. As soon as it's fixed and I can use the surviving parts from PC-α to upgrade PC-β, I'm out of this den of stupidity."

"Once-lette, don't go. I need you here…you're the only person who…"

"Doesn't treat you like a failure?" she says. "I know, but I can't stand living in that intellectual waste-land any longer." She wipes sweat from her forehead, leaving a trail of grease. "Just so you know, I think your Thneed is a great idea. Something that can be anything. Brilliant, if you can figure out how to do it. I don't think wool will work. You're going to need a much softer, much more malleable material for something so heady." She puts the hood down. "Lamentably, I know little about textiles. That's more your department. You'll figure it out. I have faith in you, brother." She says. She walks past him, patting his shoulder with her dirty hand before heading inside to clean up. "I'll help with breakfast this morning, but I have to spend the rest of the day on PC-β."

Once-lette takes a shower, dressing in a nearly-identical outfit of worn jeans and grey shirt. She slicks her hair back into a low pony-tail and goes downstairs to find that the rest of her family is already waiting at the dining room table.

"I swear, Once-lette, would it kill you to put on a pretty dress or do something nice with your hair for a change? Oncie is more of a girl than you." Their mother says. Once-lette doesn't even look over at her and instead aids her twin in cooking that morning's breakfast, though she is far from being as skilled as he is and nearly burns the toast and utterly fails at the pancakes.

'_Keep it up, you hag. I won't be here much longer._' Once-lette thinks as she watches the rest of the family wolf down the morning's breakfast, bereft of any form of table-manners while she and Once-ler eat their breakfast carefully and slowly. After the rest of the family leaves the room, Once-ler says to Once-lette:

"Those numbers carved onto Brett's bed, did you do them?" A smirk crosses her lips and slowly, she responds:

"01001000010000010101010001000101."

"How did you do that? What is that?" Once-ler asks, both unsettled by the smirk on his twin's face, and amazed that she could let off a stream of numbers with such methodical precision and flawless confidence.

"It's binary. Remember it, Once-ler. I have a feeling that in a few years, there will be places on the internet where one can change binary to English." She stands and walks out of the room, her stride long as she returns to their shared room to work on her computers.

That night, Once-ler lie awake, staring at that series of numbers, trying to memorize it. Repeating it in his head over and over again. It all looked so arbitrary—just a bunch of zeroes and ones in seemingly random order, but it had to mean something.

'_Binary. That's what she called it. She told me that it is the language computers speak. How does Once-lette do that? It looks like just a bunch of random numbers—well, just a bunch of ones and zeroes but it means something. Is Mom right? Is Once-lette really _that_ obsessed with computers?_'

A few weeks later, the car is repaired and Once-lette loads her clothes, the AMV, and the up-graded PC-β, PC-γ, and PC-δ into the car. Wordlessly, she walks to Once-ler while the rest of the family watches and hugs her brother for the last time.

"Goodbye, Once-ler. Take care, and don't forget what I told you." She looks over at the other five, scowling. They say nothing, but their mother sniggers.

"Good riddance!" Grizelda shouts.

"Yeah, good riddance, Gear-head!" Brett parrot-screams.

"Remember, Once-lette, if you end up a big failure, none of us will be surprised!" her mother shouts. The five of them guffaw loudly and Once-ler stands, silent.

'_Goodbye, Once-lette, and good luck. I believe in you. You can do it, no matter what they say—just like you told me. Goodbye, sister._' "Goodbye, Once-lette! Be careful and remember that I love you! You can do it! I know you can! Take the world by storm!" he cries out as she drives away.

"Be quiet, Oncie." His mother reprimands.

After months of driving, Once-lette reaches a new town. The technology there is premier, new technology. A smile crosses Once-lette's lips.

"I'm home…" she says. She finds work repairing computers and writing AI scripts for a small software company. Sitting outside one day, she reflects upon the home she left. '_It would be so much better—so much better to rebuild the world, to where everyone is part machine; a synergy of the flesh and mechanical. To be able to upload all that you are into some sort of device…A Neural-Interface-Device. A NID._' A smile courses up her face and breaks into a full grin. '_That's it! The missing piece! I will call it the NID. All shall desire a NID. It fixes the errors inherent in humans, the faulty memory replaced by the storage and recall abilities of a computer—though the brain has far more storage than we can make—ah! Make the brain the hard-drive! It's so simple, I don't know why I didn't see it before! Then, all that data can be stored on a NID-companion personal server wirelessly. Any new information—anything that need be learned could be downloaded into the NID and stored on the Natural Hard-drive. _ALL_ shall desire a NID. A leap forward for all mankind. A great apparatus that all humanity would do well to have. Once-ler, you were right. I'm going to do it! I'm going to craft my NID._' She thinks. Giggling and skipping, she returns to her workshop apartment and begins work on her NID. Quickly, she draws up the schematics. "I think I could also work the interface of the AMV into this, have it feed directly into the brain and into the optic nerve, creating a "built-in" monitor. The NID would eliminate the need for a keyboard, as what one thinks would be typed. Same with running programs. Think them open, if you will. It would have internet access, with the ability to update its software in an instant. Oh! This is going to be great! Thank you, Once-ler!" She crafts the object, carefully. It is black and metallic on the outside with a soft material on the inside with nodes that attach to the back of the neck, feeding into the brain itself. Painless, but impossible to remove. Like the Thneed, the NID becomes an over-night success, with Once-lette becoming just as wealthy as her twin. Neural-Computing, Inc. becomes the business powerhouse of that area, and Once-lette becomes so wealthy that she purchases the town she once called her home, renaming it "NIDLand", just as her brother renamed Greenville "Thneedville".

Just as her brother, though, Once-lette begins to fall. She desires more power. She over-clocks her own NID and creates a cloud-server that only she can access, giving her the ability to see everything stored in the residents of NIDLand's NID-companion servers…she also installs something very special in her NID…something that would give her absolute control and remove those she deemed "unworthy". A "Kill Command". Eventually, she kills all but a few residents of NIDLand, seeing them as insects, just as she saw her family all those years ago.

At the height of his company's success, Once-ler receives a message. He sits at his desk, looking over his model Thneedville when a small secretary enters his office.

"Mr. Once-ler, there is a message for you from someone calling themselves Once-lette." Once-ler's eyes widen behind his sunglasses. "Would you like to reject it or—"

"No, what's it say?"

"It's not that. It wants access to your computer. You'll have to allow it in."

"You're sure it is from someone named Once-lette?"

"Yes, sir."

"Leave the room, Ms. Holloway." Once-ler says and the small woman leaves in a haste, not wanting to anger the great and powerful Once-ler. Once-ler turns to his own PC and sees the notification window that a remote PC wants access to his. He clicks "allow" and is greeted by Once-lette—at least, that's who he _thinks_ it is. It was his sister, sure—same blue eyes, and same black hair in the same pony-tail. She was enshrouded in a grey body-suit of some sort and black mechanical implants dot her face, one replacing her left eye.

"Hello, twin brother." She smiles.

"Once-lette? How did you get into my computer like that?"

"Really? You're surprised I can do that." She smirks. "I was _Gear-head,_ remember. More machine than person." She laughs. "I guess that's true, now. Mom was right, the bitch that she is."

"Why are you calling me now, Once-lette? It's been so long. I couldn't even find you to help me make my Thneed."

"Oh, I was too busy with _my_ invention, Once-ler. Sorry I couldn't help, really, but it requires my constant attention." She smiles again, the cybernetic implants around her mouth warping her smile. "As to the reason why I have contacted you today, it seems that we both have reached astounding success with our inventions."

"Your AMV took off?" she scoffs.

"Please. The AMV was just a start. It is all about my NID. My Neural-Interface-Device. Just as you have built a town dedicated to yourself and named for your product, I have done the same thing. Twin link, eh? Come to NIDLand. I wish to see you again, dear brother."

"NIDLand?"

"I'll upload the coordinates onto your computer, now. I'll give you directions if you need them." Once-ler looks over the coordinates and the directions. Not too far, really. He could make it there in a day or so. "Oh, and Once-ler. Come alone. Don't bring the plebeians with you. I just want to see you, not _them_." She says, venom in the word "them".

"Who was that?" The Lorax asks as the small, orange creature enters the room.

"No one. Forget about it, moustache."

"It didn't sound like _no one_. Sounded like a woman your age. It also sounded like she called you her twin brother, too. _Once-lette_, such a similar name to yours, isn't it?"

"Stay out of this, moustache." Once-ler growls.

"I know, I know. She said for you to go alone. I'd be careful, though. She sounded unstable."

"Yeah, thanks for the warning, but I think I know my own damned twin sister, Lorax."

After a couple of days of travel, Once-ler reaches NIDLand to find that it is very similar to his Thneedville, though much less whimsical. Everything is sterile and metallic. Stream-lined to perfection. Mechanical and cold. The streets seem empty, with a few people wandering. One of them, a young man, rushes to Once-ler.

"You! You don't have it! You don't have the NID! Quick! You have to get to her! Help us!"

"Who? Who do I have to get to?"

"The Once-lette! She's killed almost everyone here! Please! You don't have one of these damned things! You have to stop her! Please! She's going to keep toying with us, keep playing with us until—" The young man drops dead at Once-ler's feet. There is no wound on his body. It is as if someone just _turned him off_. Once-ler looks forward to a large, metal building. Gears turn on the outside and wires hang from it. The building itself looks like a massive machine.

'_I guess that's where she'd be…_' Once-ler thinks. He walks to the building, shoving the NID-people out of his way as they plead for him to stop his twin sister. He enters, the doors opening automatically for him and slamming shut behind him, the sound of metal-on-metal resonating through the giant mechanical hall.

"Oh, hey, Once-ler. Glad you could make it. Pity about those outside. Did they give you a hard time? Should I kill command a few of them?"

"Once-lette, what have you done?"

"What I've always wanted." She says, no small hint of pleasure in her voice. "I am a computer now—mostly, as is everyone in NIDLand. You see, the brain is the strongest Hard Drive of them all. Once I figured how to make up for its imperfections, it was really quite simple to make my NID. It will make humanity perfect."

"But why are you killing so many people?" Once-ler asks, walking, still looking for his sister, for the nexus of her voice that was darting from speaker to speaker in the machine-complex she called home.

"They are insects. I am simply removing the insects and leaving those that deserve to remain. Survival of the fittest, dear brother. Those who would be wiped out by Natural Selection are allowed to live and thrive, despite the natural order of things. My NID corrects this." Once-ler reaches a metal door with dim lights flashing around it. "The Once-lette" is engraved, by laser, on the middle. "Ah, you've reached my housing. I'll open it for you. I want to have a look at you. The cameras are nice, and seeing you through the eyes of my citizens was nice, but I want to see you myself. Come in, Once-ler."

Once-ler steps inside the door just after it slides up and is amazed at what he sees. Once-lette hangs, held in place with metal clasps before a grand main-frame and a huge screen hangs above her, projecting her face onto it. Wires run out of her head and, even under the body-suit, he can see that she has become extremely emaciated.

"Ah, I see you've noticed my appearance, Once-ler. I had all but my most essential organs removed. I no longer eat. I no longer sleep. I am machine, inside and out, now."

"A cyborg?" Once-ler asks.

"Yes, that's one way of putting it, I suppose." Once-ler shakes his head.

"You're a monster now, Once-lette. Mom was right. It was unhealthy for you to be so obsessed with machines."

"What?!" she says, disbelief in her voice.

"I can't let you keep this up, Once-lette. Those people out there, the people with the NID, are suffering, and you're the one causing it. You have to stop."

"Why should I?" she asks. "Those that are unfit are killed. No blood, no pain; just a kill command and they are out like a light."

"But don't you see? The decision of who lives and who dies is not yours to make! You can't just kill those who you see as unfit!"

"I can't believe this, Once-ler," she says, "I invite you into my home, let you gaze upon the human form, perfected by machinery, and this is what you say to me? That _I'm_ a monster? I perfected mankind!" Once-ler shakes his head and starts to walk to a terminal on the far wall. "What the hell are you doing, Once-ler? Get the hell away from that."

"I'm shutting you down, Once-lette." He says.

"No! I can't survive out of this state!" She cries out.

"Then stop killing and let those people go."

"No. I am so close to removing all undesirables."

"Then I have no choice…" Once-ler says, tears in his eyes. Once-lette shuts her eyes and a moment later, several android drones emerge from a hidden chamber and attack Once-ler. Picking up a loose pipe, he fights them off, working his way to the terminal. He brings the pipe down, hard, on one an android's head, destroying the drone and attempts to access the terminal.

**PASSWORD REQUIRED:**

Once-ler looks over at Once-lette, his brows knit.

"Oh, come on, did you really not expect me to have it password protected?" Once-lette says, distaste in her voice. Once-ler strikes down another android. Turning, he enters "**ONCE-LER**". Once-lette laughs. "Really, brother? You're so narcissistic that you think I would make the password your name?"

**PASSWORD REJECTED: 2 OUT OF 3 ATTEMPTS REMAINING**

Biting his lip, Once-ler tries to think. An android grabs him, knocking his pipe from his grip. He struggles with it as its metallic jaws snap at his throat.

"If you say you'll leave, I'll call them off, dear brother. I really have no desire to watch you die, but self-preservation does have its pull." She says, her voice calm. Once-ler struggles with the creature and snaps its neck. Its eyes go dead. He throws the android off himself, grabs his pipe, and returns to the terminal, inputting "**PERFECTION**" Once-lette giggles.

"Really? You're going with that?" Frowning, Once-ler hits the enter key.

**PASSWORD REJECTED: 1 OUT OF 3 ATTEMPTS REMAINING**

"Just give up, dear twin. You're not going to get it, and once that last attempt is gone, only I can access it. I had to make sure only people who I trusted to maintain me could gain access to me." Another android falls under Once-ler's pipe and a thought enters his mind. Slowly, and carefully, he enters the following: **01001000010000010101010001000101**

** PASSWORD ACCEPTED: WELCOME, NEURAL-COMPUTING, INC. EMPLOYEE. WHAT DO YOU WISH TO DO?** Taking a deep breath, Once-ler selects "Begin shut-down on NID-PRIME, Username: Gear-head" Once-lette's remaining eye widens and the light in her implant brightens.

"No! You don't have to do this!"

**"Shut down initiated. Please hold on a moment."** Rings out over the speakers filling The Once-lette's complex.

"Over-ride! Over-ride! OVER-RIDE! Do you hear me!? OVER-RIDE!" Once-lette cries out.

"I've disabled your over-ride, Once-lette." Once-ler says, destroying the last android and walking to stand before his twin.

"No! No! Turn it off! Make it stop!" she shrieks.

"I can't do that. I'm so sorry, Once-lette…I should have been here with you. I should have left with you…you may not have turned out like this…"

"Once-ler…" she says as the screen above her flickers and powers down. The low hum of the main-frame falling silent. Once-lette falls still and silent.

"I couldn't kill you, Once-lette. I just shut you down. I…I can't kill. I'm not like you. I will make sure that the people with the NID get out of here and find a way to remove your invention from them. I will see to it that your mechanical fortress remains undisturbed. One day, I may re-activate you…until then…goodbye, Once-lette." Once-ler says. He turns and leaves, heading back home.

Once-ler arrives back at his mansion, trying to hide his despair at what he had done, and at what his sister had done. He slips upstairs and, wordlessly, walks past Brett and Chet. He sits at his desk and pours himself a glass of brandy. Sipping it, he stares, absentmindedly at the blank screen of his own computer, his reflection dark on its surface. His eyes widen.

'_The number! That sequence of numbers all those years ago! I'll bet it's just like she said; there's probably countless binary-to-English translators!'_ Once-ler quickly turns on his computer and, within a few minutes, has found a translator. He put the number sequence carved so long ago into Brett's bedframe. **01001000010000010101010001000101**. Once-ler enters it and is shocked by what comes out. Four letters. Four simple, yet when the four of them combine, are so very powerful:

**HATE**


End file.
